Part 10 (1/2)
Betwixt them they led the sweet little child, crying and clinging imploringly to the fair maiden, who lookt not down upon it. The child lifted up and claspt its little beseeching hands, and stroakt the pale neck and cheeks of the marble beauty. But she held it fast by the hair, and in the other hand a silver basin.
Then the old woman growled, and pulled out a long knife, and drew it across the white neck of the child. Here something crawled forth from behind that they seemed not to perceive, or it must have struck them with the same thrilling terrour as Emilius. A serpent curled its loathsome neck, scale after scale, lengthening and still lengthening, out of the darkness, and stoopt down over the child, whose lifeless limbs hung from the old woman's arms: its black tongue lickt up the spirting red blood, and a green sparkling eye shot over into the eye, and brain, and heart of Emilius, who instantly dropt on the ground.
He was senseless when found by Roderick some hours after.
A party of friends were sitting on the brightest summer morning in a green arbour, a.s.sembled at an excellent breakfast. Laughter and jests pa.s.sed round; and many a time did the gla.s.ses kiss with a merry health to the young couple, and a wish that they might be the happiest of the happy. The bride and bridegroom were not present; she being still engaged in dressing, while the young husband was sauntering by himself down an avenue some way off, musing upon his happiness.
”What a pity it is,” said Anderson, ”that we are to have no music! All our ladies are beclouded at the thought, and never in their whole lives longed for a dance so much as today, when it is quite out of the question: it is far too painful to his feelings.”
”I can tell you a secret though,” exclaimed a young officer, ”that we are to have a dance after all; and a rare riotous and madcap one it will be. Everything is already arranged; the musicians are come secretly and quartered out of sight. Roderick has managed the whole business; for he says one ought not to let him always have his own way, or to humour his strange caprices overmuch, especially on such a day as this.”
”Besides,” observed another young man, ”he is already become much more tractable and sociable than he used to be; so that I think he himself will not be sorry at the alteration. Indeed the whole wedding has been brought about all on the sudden, and has taken everybody by surprise.”
”His whole history,” resumed Anderson, ”is just as extraordinary as his character. You must all remember how, being on his travels last autumn, he arrived in our city, and spent the winter there, living like a melancholy man almost entirely in his own room, and never visiting our theatre or taking part in any other amus.e.m.e.nt. He all but quarrelled with Roderick, his most intimate friend, for trying to divert him, and refusing to pamper all his moping fantasies. In fact this overstrained irritability and moroseness must have been a disease that was gathering in his body: for you know he was attackt four months ago by such a violent nervous fever, that his life was for a long time despaired of. After his frenzy had raved itself out, and he returned to his senses, he had almost entirely lost his memory: nothing but his childhood and early youth kept its hold on his mind; and he was totally unable to recollect anything that had happened during his journey, or immediately before his illness. He had to begin his acquaintance afresh with all his friends, even with Roderick; and it is only by little and little that his thoughts have grown lighter, and that the past with all that had befallen him has come back, though still in dim colours, into his memory. He had been removed into his uncle's house, that better care might be taken of him; and he was just like a child, letting them do whatever they chose with him. The first time he went out to enjoy the warmth of the spring in the park, he saw a girl sitting pensively by the roadside. She lookt up; her eye met his; and seized with an inexplicable yearning he stopt the carriage, got out, sat down by her, took hold of her hands, and burst into a flood of tears. His friends were again alarmed for his intellects: but he grew calm, cheerful, and conversable, got introduced to the girl's parents, and at his very first visit askt for her hand, which, with her parents consent, she granted him. Since that time he has been happy, and a new life has sprung up within him: day after day he has become healthier and more contented. A week ago he paid me a visit at this country house, and was above measure delighted with it; indeed so much so that he would not rest till he had made me sell it to him. I might easily have turned his pa.s.sionate desire to my own advantage, and his loss; for when he once sets his heart on a thing, he will have it, and that too forthwith. He immediately let it be got ready, sent furniture that he may spend the summer months here; and thus it has come to pa.s.s that we are all met for his wedding in my old garden.”
The house was large, and in a very lovely country. One side of it lookt on a river and some woody hills beyond; shrubs and trees of various kinds were scattered about the lawn; and immediately before the windows lay a flower garden sweetening the air. The orange and lemon trees were ranged in a large open hall, from which small doors led to the store rooms, cellars, and pantries. On the other side a meadow spread out its green floor, opening immediately into the park.
The two long wings of the house formed a s.p.a.cious court; and broad open galleries, borne by three rows of pillars standing one above the other, ran round it, connecting all the rooms in the house, and giving it a singular and interesting character: for figures were perpetually moving along these arcades, some engaged in one employment, some in another; new forms kept stepping forth between the pillars and out of the various rooms, which anon vanisht and then reappeared above or below, to be lost behind one of the doors: parties too would often a.s.semble there for tea or for some game; and thus from below the whole had the look of a theatre, before which everybody was glad to stop awhile, with a foreboding that something strange or pleasing was sure to meet his eyes ere long.
The party of young people were just rising, when the bride came in her full dress through the garden walking toward them. She was clad in violet-coloured velvet: a sparkling necklace lay cradled on her glittering neck; the costly lace just allowed her white swelling bosom to glimmer through; and her wreath of myrtle and white roses gave her brown hair a still more beautiful tint.
She greeted them all graciously, and the young men were astonisht at her surpa.s.sing beauty. She had been gathering flowers in the garden, and was going back into the house to see after the arrangements for dinner.
The tables had been set out in the lower open gallery, and shone dazzlingly with their white coverings and their load of sparkling crystal: rich cl.u.s.ters of many-coloured flowers rose from the graceful necks of alabaster vases; green garlands, starred with white blossoms, twined round the columns: and it was a lovely sight to behold the bride gliding along with gentle motion between the tables and the pillars, amid the light of the flowers, overlooking the whole with a searching glance, and then vanis.h.i.+ng; and reappearing a moment after above, to pa.s.s into her chamber.
”She is the loveliest, most enchanting creature I ever saw!” cried Anderson: ”our friend is indeed a happy man.”
”Her very paleness,” added the officer, ”hightens her beauty. Her hazel eyes only sparkle the more intensely above those white cheeks and beneath those dark locks; and the singular, almost burning redness of her lips gives her face a truly magical appearance.”
”The air of silent melancholy that surrounds her,” said Anderson, ”sheds a n.o.ble majesty over her.”
The bridegroom joined them, and askt after Roderick: he had been missing for some time, and they could not conceive what he was about.
All set off in search of him.
”He is down in the hall,” said at length a young man whom they happened to ask, ”in the midst of the coachmen, footmen, and grooms, shewing off tricks at cards, which make them stare till their wits ache.”
They walkt in, and interrupted the boisterous admiration of the servants, without however disturbing Roderick, who quietly went on conjuring. When he had finisht, he returned with the others into the garden, and said: ”I do it only to strengthen the fellows in their faith: these puzzles give a hard blow to their grooms.h.i.+ps'
free-thinking inclinations, and help to make 'em true believers.”
”I see,” said the bridegroom, ”my all-sufficing friend, among his other talents, does not think that of a mountebank beneath his cultivation.”
”We live in strange times,” replied the other; ”who knows whether mountebanks may not come to rule the roast in their turn? One ought to despise nothing nowadays: the veriest straw of a talent may be that which is to break the camel's back.”
When the two friends found themselves alone, Emilius again turned down the dark avenue and said: ”Why am I in such a gloomy mood on this the happiest day of my life? But I a.s.sure you, Roderick, though you will not believe me, I am not made for moving about amid such a mob of human beings,--for this parade of heartless courtesy,--for keeping my attention on the _qui vive_ to every letter of the alphabet, so that neither A nor Z may complain of being treated with disrespect,--for making low bows to her tenth cousin, and shaking hands warmly with my twentieth,--for this formal reverence to her parents,--for handing a flower from my nosegay of compliments to every lady that crosses the room,--for waiting to receive the tide of new-comers as wave after wave rushes over me, and then turning to give orders that their servants and horses may each have a full trough and pail set before them.”
”That is a watch that goes of its own accord;” answered Roderick.
”Only look at your house! it was just built for such an occasion: and your head-butler, with his right hand taking up at the same time that his left hand is setting down, and one leg running north while the other seems to be making for south, was begotten and born for the very purpose of putting confusion in order. He would set my brains to rights if he could get at 'em: were the whole city to come, he would find room for all; and he'll make your hospitality the proverb of fifty miles round. Leave all such matters to him, and to your lovely bride; and where will you find so sweet a lightener of this world's cares?”